The Magazine
The Technology Issue
September 30, 2019
Goings On
Movies
Classics and Rediscoveries at the New York Film Festival
The city’s main showcase for new movies from around the world also offers a cornucopia of revivals, with works from Luis Buñuel, Frank Borzage, and more.
Tables for Two
Red Hook Tavern’s Strangely Stiff Paean to Old-School New York
Much of the menu is admirable, but the new restaurant, meant to pay homage to the city’s classic neighborhood saloons, is dripping with forced nostalgia.
The Talk of the Town
Elizabeth Kolbert on Greta Thunberg’s climate mission; the candidates’ IMDb credits; fashion of a kind; Jenny Lewis talks salad; cooking with the sun.
Brave New World Dept.
Alan Bigelow’s Solar-Cooking Revolution
The physicist and inventor wants to bring solar stoves to parts of the world where open fires harm humans and the environment.
The Campaign Trail
The Art of the Political Cameo
Bernie Sanders is a curmudgeon in an eighties dramedy, Cory Booker reaches across the aisle in “Parks and Rec,” and Bill de Blasio won’t shut up on “The Good Wife.”
Songs of the Day
Jenny Lewis’s Wasted Youth
The singer on her origin story: her father was a harmonica virtuoso, her grandmother was a Busby Berkeley dancer, and her grandfather was a Golden Gloves boxer.
Dept. of Misfires
The Hottest Looks from the N.R.A.’s Concealed Carry Fashion Show
In Texas during New York Fashion Week, brands such as Tactica Defense and American Rebel ruled the runway.
Comment
Summits, Strikes, and Climate Change
There are positive signs that the politics of climate change are changing in America. And giving up isn’t really an option.
Reporting & Essays
Annals of Medicine
Paging Dr. Robot
A pathbreaking surgeon prefers to do his cutting by remote control.
Brave New World Dept.
How TikTok Holds Our Attention
On the popular short-video app, young people are churning through images and sounds at warp speed, repurposing reality into ironic, bite-size content.
A Reporter at Large
Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?
Eating meat creates huge environmental costs. Impossible Foods thinks it has a solution.
Shouts & Murmurs
Shouts & Murmurs
Running with Scissors
They say that bad things will happen if you do this, but that hasn’t been my experience. You see, job interviews go much faster when you’re running around an office holding scissors.
Fiction
Sketchbook
Hudson Yards
Fiction
The Fellow
The Critics
Books
Briefly Noted
“A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves,” “The Outlaw Ocean,” “The Ten Loves of Nishino,” and “Marilou Is Everywhere.”
Books
Is Meritocracy Making Everyone Miserable?
In a renewed debate over élite higher education, the question is whether the system is broken or the whole idea was a terrible mistake.
Books
The Desperate Plight Behind “Darkness at Noon”
Arthur Koestler’s novel of the Moscow Trials laid bare the gulf between Communist ideals and the reality they produced.
A Critic at Large
The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism
Big technological shifts have always empowered reformers. They have also empowered bigots, hucksters, and propagandists.
The Current Cinema
Villains Hog the Spotlight in “The Laundromat”
Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman enjoy themselves so thoroughly in Steven Soderbergh’s Panama Papers film that it ends up revelling in the outrages it purports to condemn.
Poems
Poems
On Friendship
Poems
The Climate
Cartoons
1/17
Cartoon by Jason Patterson
Cartoon Caption Contest
The Mail
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